Queer Housing Out of this World

When I looked through my contacts list to find friends to revisit for the holidays, I realized that many are going home to family in the many small towns of the States. It reminded me that so much of our personal identities are culturally landscaped; we are the geographies of our mother’s home cooking.

What would the mapping of NYC’s bustling queer community measure? How would we plot the points of our friends and how far do we stretch?

One friend I asked as she arrived just yesterday, how is it being in the middle of the country?

Where in the world are we – Queer Housing – Out of this world! Image CC-SA by http://fav.me/d2yev9t

“It’s Country and backwards…home regardless…it’s actually hilarious.”

I wish I understood what she meant. Could it be anymore backwards that the spaces we exist in today? Harlem streets where just this week, as I saw her off, we bumped into the standard occurrence of a black man being pinned down by eight officers, because of a fist-fight – the other of the pair, the younger one who was bullied, also pulled off in cuffs. Passers by watched with their cell phones. I chose not to take part in the masquerade but did implore why the young man who was the “victim” had to be put into the van?”Everyone goes to the precinct!” The officer responded. “He’s not goin to jail, just the precinct. And this was my one-day in Harlem experience.

This of course was before we were asked to stop marching because of the death of two fallen soldiers. I must say that although it is all a trajedy, the death of two officers cannot make up for the death of young black and brown men throughout the country. I see these officers as victims of this same war. I hope that no one feels avenged here. War is not the subject of this blog post though.

Housing is the subject!

Stay tuned for more on Housing, and welcome.